Electron hopping mechanism in hematite (α-Fe2O3) Original Research Article

The frequency dependence of the real (ɛ′) and imaginary (ɛ″) parts of the dielectric constant of polycrystalline hematite (α-Fe2O3) has been investigated in the frequency range 0–100 kHz and the temperature range 190–350 K, in order to reveal experimentally the electron hopping mechanism that takes place during the Morin transition of spin-flip process. The dielectric behaviour is described well by the Debye-type relaxation (α-dispersion) in the temperature regions T<233 K and T>338 K. In the intermediate temperature range 233 K318 K τ decreases as the temperature increases implying a positive activation energy 0.12 eV. The total reorganization energy (0.12–0.01) 0.11 eV is in agreement with the adiabatic activation energy 0.11 eV given by an ab initio model in the literature. The temperature dependence of the phase shift in the frequencies 1, 5, 10 kHz applied shows clearly an average Morin temperature TMo=284±1 K that is higher than the value of 263 K corresponding to a single crystal due to the size and shape of material grains.